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FS: Quad 405-2 Monoblocks

These are amplifiers that walk the line of detail, musicality and coherence with aplomb.

For me their biggest strength is their voicing; they don't spotlight any frequency but present music in an unforced, natural and realistic fashion which makes a lot of other presentations sound false. They truly get out of the way and let the music do the talking.

I've copied Ian's photos of the internals (hope you don't mind Ian). The externals are servicable but obviously not where their beauty lies.

These were a last throw of the dice for me with regard to solid state amps for the Lockwoods but my speakers just don't give their best with SS which is a shame as it would save a lot of hassle with valves but there you go. For what it's worth I enjoyed these more than the big money pre-powers I tried as they just gave you the music instead of the hifi but at the same time offered all the separation and clarity of anything else but just in truly coherent fashion. They are a time machine type of amp, hours can pass by easily.

Just looking to recoup costs so £600 collected or £650 including insured, next day delivery.

"All the work done on these was carried out by Duncan (Tubehunter).Rebuilt to exactly the same spec as his (now Barry's), these have been upgraded with four F&T 22,000 power supply capacitors, four 35 amp bridge rectifiers one per rail. RCA Phono connectors and power switch fitted.
There is one 405 mk2 board in each case, which is up to Keith Snook's Mod 3 level. Including 20A output transistors, PRP 1% resistors through out with Z-foils in key areas, OPA604AP Op-amps, new inductors, transistors polystyrene small value caps and Elna Cerefine capacitors. Limiters have been removed and Vellaman K4700 loudspeaker protection boards fitted."

These look interesting. Does anyone know how they'd fare against my current Arcam P1's? What about the input impedance for when using a passive?

Hi Simon, never heard Arcam P1s so can't comment on a comparison.

Both Ian and myself used the Quads with passive preamps and they worked perfectly. Not sure what the input impedance is but AFAIK they are the standard input sensitivity for a 405-2 which is 0.5Vrms for full output.

Thanks for the reply John. Did some quick research and seems the Snook 3 board has 220kohm impedance if I've read it right so that is good. I'm tempted for sure but not sure if it'll be more of a lateral move.